Archive for March, 2009

I continue to be fascinated by Contemporary building architecture. Retail store architecture has really caught my eye. Against much initial skepticism in 2001 Apple has been successful with their retail stores. Today Apple has 251 across the global.

We live in uncertain times with our economies going into uncharted territory. You can feel the heightened sense of fear. Many are afraid of loosing the things they have. All of us can choose to embrace change or fight it. Change is inevitable. It is the only constant. We’ve always had the power to make change happen ourselves and fulfill our dreams. The one thing that holds us back is our own fear.

Fear stops us doing things. We fear loss, we fear failure and we even fear success. Fear is not a bad response. It stops us getting physically hurt. But it also stops us taking risks. And without taking some risks we remain stationary. I believe over coming fear is one of the most important things in life. That is, if you want to learn and grow before you die.

Fear slowed me down

In my last employment I spend six years looking out the window. Waiting for the pay check every month. Accepting their rules in return for the money. Don’t get me wrong it was a great job but in the end it was holding me back. Stopping my creative ideas. Fear stopped me changing. I overcame that fear and now I’m on a roller coast of a ride with my startup. Change is constant. Uncertainty is guaranteed. Unfortunately there is a price to pay for this thrill ride. My hard earned life savings are rapidly dwindling. Has it been worth it? Hell, yeah.

In Pamela Slim’s short video on ‘The Upside of Fear‘ she believes fear is good for learning and growing. So when that storm cloud of fear gathers over you, don’t panic, embrace fear. This is the story of Jeffery Walker who is fighting Cancer for the 4th time. Cancer is bad… very, very bad. But Jeffery sees the good. The Cancer is changing him physically and mentally. It’s also changing many around him. When I interviewed Jeffery last year I saw a man who enjoyed every little experience and everything he saw.

Fear is self-fulfilling. The shrinks call this a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy‘. Whether we are in a recession or not, fear is a natural constant. In my experience don’t fight fear, get over it. Close your eyes. See your vision of the future and jump. Don’t hesitate or fear will have you in its grip. Good things will come, sooner or later.

Rachel confirmed my long held view that Dragons’ Den is not how real business funding is done. The show producers deliberately put many unsuitable candidates in front of the investors to provoke and maximize emotional responses on both sides. This makes for exciting entertainment but is frequently at the expense of the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur’s often become the laughing stock. Some of the entrepreneurs are naive. Some are foolish. Many of them are unprepared but they’ve all taken a significant risk to start their own business. We now live in a time when our economy needs young fresh businesses the most. So lets celebrate entrepreneurship and give them a helping hand.

In the past I’ve heard negative comments questioning Rachel’s success. I even heard some of these after Rachel’s talk.From my experience of interviewing and working for entrepreneurs there is often more to learn from failure than success. Yes, Rachel did fail after having a big success, however she has not quit. More importantly she has continued to learn from her experiences. This has enabled her to change her focus. I think there is much to learn from Rachel’s 16 points on starting and running a startup:

You need the ability to overcome constant knock backs – It can be an emotional roller coaster of a ride. You have to pick yourself up and keep running. Good things can come from bad situations. My startup was badly let down by a freelancer last week but in the end we found someone even better.

“I’m Nick Barker and my company is Aware Monitoring. The global recession will dramatically increase leisure and business website traffic. This growth will push websites to their limits and cause capacity, performance and availability problems.

Our service helps prevent website downtime/slowdowns and the associated loss of revenues. The market currently has low cost basic products or expensive complex enterprise products. Our service focuses on a niche market using in-bound, word of mouth marketing with a ‘freemium’ model. The service is charged monthly.

We’ve been running and selling monitoring products for more than 10 years now. I’m the CEO with 20 years Tech experience and an MBA. My CTO co-founder has 15 years software Tech experience. In my last job I grew a monitoring startup into a global multi million $ service and we see the same high-growth potential for Aware Monitoring”

I’m not a designer but I like to think I know the difference between good and not so good design. You may disagree with my judgements but that’s the great thing about design, its an opinion. Design is like Art but on a practical level. Design is all around us – the chair you are sitting on, the keyboard you are touching and the building you find yourself in. Design is at the heart of everything. I believe what makes a good design is a holistic creation right through a product or service. A design should effectively connect the consumer with the product or service.

Ryan Carson Twitted this week linking to 36 imaginative business card designs. The card designs go from creative to surreal. Many of these cards are great ideas. However a good design is a tightly woven combination of an appealing visual form and an underlying practical purpose. Of course the purpose can vary a great deal.

I’ve picked out my favorite three creative business cards from the 36 but find myself asking what is the purpose of these wonderful designs? These cards are produced by designers for designers. They are there to impress each other with their creative ability. For the vast majority of consumers the message of these cards send out may be too strong or give the wrong impression. So before we pick a ‘nice’ looking design for anything we need to first understand the purpose of the design. Designs are a journey, they connect people. They connect the consumer with the producer through a product or service designer.

Designs therefore should start from the inside of a product or service and work outwards. The external design form is the most important part but it is also not the most important.. A design should also be attractive from the inside as well as the outside. A good design should make a ‘thing’ more friendly, usable and appealing. Apple has done a wonderful job with the ipod and iphone. Apples devices are much more friendly, usable and appealing than many of the alternatives. That’s why they have been so successful. A good designer listens and understands their customers. They understand the purpose and the need.

I recently heard a fascinating talk from Design Award Winning Wayne Hemingway. Wayne referred to modern residential housing as “sh*t buildings” or “prisons”. So he designed houses around peoples needs. He understood the need for people to be social and part of a community. Wayne is not a building designer but he listens and empathises. In a way we are all designers. We create whenever we form or change a service or product. A good design and redesign often come at a higher cost than a unthought out design. But why not spend more time getting a service or product right so that it is well used and loved rather than becoming unwanted.

About me

My name's Nick Barker. I'm the CEO and co-founder of a Tech startup - Aware Monitoring. My passions are the Tech industry, road biking and great big adventures. I'm a reflector and this is my personal blog. Find me on Twitter here and Click for more about me..